By Nicole Rivard

When I discovered the barn where I’ve been taking horseback riding lessons for more than three decades was not renewing the lease of Yellowstone, a striking cremello pony who I had deeply bonded with throughout the past year, my heart sank.  

Would she go back to her owner’s riding academy with guaranteed lifelong care, or donated or leased to another recreational barn? Would she be sold to a loving family or land in an auction, where she could fall through the cracks and end up in the slaughter pipeline? 

The fear is real because even though the last horse slaughterhouse operating in the United States closed in 2007, it is still legal to export America’s horses for slaughter.  More than 20,000 domestic and wild U.S. horses were sold for slaughter in 2024, according to the Maryland-based non-profit Animals’ Angels Inc.  

While that number is significantly lower than the 148,000 horses sold for slaughter in 2014, not one horse should ever be transported across the border to slaughter facilities in Mexico and Canada so their meat can be exported to Europe, Japan, and China to be consumed.  

Unfortunately, breeding organizations such as the Jockey club, the official registry of Thoroughbred horses in the U.S. and Canada, and the American Quarter Horse Association, are not concerned with where horses end up year after year. Their revenue is in new foals because registration of new horses is their main source of income.  

And not all owners see horses as lifelong companions like a dog or cat due to evolving riding goals and life transitions. It’s all too common for families to sell a pony when their child outgrows it or a horse when their teenager heads to college. 

It is also incredibly common for a horse to change hands frequently throughout their life. That is the heartbreaking reality of the $177 billion commercial horse industry in this country. 

In 2022, only 1.23% of Americans owned horses, or more than 1.5 million households, according to the 2023 Economic Impact Study of the U.S. Horse Industry published by the American Horse Council Foundation. It’s likely because horses can cost anywhere from $5,000 to 10 times that amount. 

Most people don’t have enough property to keep their horse at home, and boarding fees can start at $2,000 a month depending on where you live. And there’s also routine farrier visits and annual veterinarian costs. 

So, people opt instead to take lessons. In number of horses and participants, recreation is the largest sector of the horse industry. In 2022, 6% or 7.8 million households participated in riding lessons, while 9.8%, or nearly 13 million, engaged in trail riding. Of the nation’s 6.7 million horses, 2.9 million participated in riding lessons or trail rides. 

The recreation sector generated $14.5 billion.  

Equine competition is the second largest sector, comprised of 1,150,740 horses, and generated $15.6 billion, followed by the racing sector, which is comprised of 1,051,457 horses and generated $16 billion.  

Horse slaughter rewards people in all sectors for being irresponsible. If you took away the option, it  
would force people, like it or not, to take responsibility for the horses.  

NO HORSE IS SAFE UNTIL THE SAFE ACT BECOMES LAW 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s kill pen records show most horses who end up there are healthy, sound, and under 10 years old, as well as trained and adoptable. 

In addition to private owners, horses are arriving at kill pens from racetracks, especially the harness racing industry in the eastern U.S. There are 32 commercial harness racing tracks and more than 200 fair racetracks. They’re also coming from the urban carriage horse industry; the Amish and Mennonite communities; riding academies that don’t provide lifelong care when a horse can no longer provide a “service,”  and a handful of Western tribes. 

These horses are sold at auctions all over the country where they spend hours and sometimes even days in overcrowded pens, often without access to food and water. The Kalona auction in Iowa remains one of the largest in the country and every week former racehorses, discarded buggy horses, and work horses from the Amish communities are sold at the New Holland, Pennsylvania auctions. 

On Feb. 27, 2025, the SAFE Act (H.R. 1661/S. 775) was reintroduced in Congress. The legislation would end the export of American horses for slaughter for human consumption and permanently ban the slaughter of horses within the United States. (There have been movements in Congress to bring horse slaughter back to the United States.) 

While Friends of Animals wants to see the SAFE Act pass by the end of 2026, as written it does not protect horses from being slaughtered for zoo/pet food and other secondary markets. It needs to be amended to prohibit the slaughter of horses for animal consumption as well to finally ban horse slaughter entirely in the United States. 

As of mid-2025, the bill had 100+ cosponsors. 

AN ETHICAL IMPERATIVE FOR HORSE OWNERS 

Until the SAFE Act passes, the horse slaughter industry will always be a threat to horses without care plans. That means owning a horse comes with the responsibility of lifelong care. 

If rehoming is the only option for an owner who falls on financial hard times or gets ill, it is incumbent on them or a family member to ensure that they are provided care for their entire lives, whether their former owners choose: lease, sale, donation/gift, retirement farm, or surrendering to a rescue/sanctuary. 

Your responsibility to every horse begins before your stewardship and extends past your care. 

I’ve always been comforted by the fact that the horses fully donated to the riding academy I’d been involved with are provided lifelong care even after they leave the program. They are brought to a retirement farm in Texas where their expenses are paid for until the end of their lives. Their caretakers send photos and email updates about them regularly. 

MOVING THE NEEDLE 

Yellowstone is no longer for sale because I have begun to lease her from her owner at the barn she originally came from. I can sleep better knowing she has a safe place to call home, that I get to visit her whenever I want, and I have a say in her future. But what happens to America’s homeless horses in the future remains to be seen.  

The good news is the consumption of horse meat in foreign markets is in free fall due to animal cruelty and welfare concerns brought to light by animal activists as well as human health risks. In 2014, the European Union banned the import of all horse meat from Mexico due to toxicity and the inability to regulate safety. Then, in 2016, the EU began requiring all horses from the U.S. must be kept in a Canadian feedlot for six months prior to slaughter and that a monitoring system had to be put into place to track residues and substances.  

In 2023, New York state set the gold standard for anti-horse slaughter legislation in America because it bans the slaughter of horses for human and animal consumption in, from, and through the State of New York.  

“Horses are beautiful animals entwined with our nation’s history. I have worked for 19 years with advocates to prohibit the buying, selling and transportation of horses for the purposes of slaughter in New York, and I applaud Gov. Hochul for signing this critical humane legislation, finally giving these cherished animals the protection they deserve,” said Assemblymember Deborah Glick.